Photographs by Joan Marcus

Les Payne

June 22, 2010

The performance of Denzel Washington is so insightful in August Wilson’s bitingly authentic play about black life that it is downright surprising, though quite fitting, that the actor won a Broadway “Tony.”

Authenticity usually gets the black artist nowhere with top awards judges soaked in what passes for white culture. Such shameless, self-absorption leaves little room for fair judgment especially of those considered outsiders. Such actors, starting with Hattie McDaniel, Oscar winner for "Gone With the Wind” and running with few exceptions down through Halle Berry and “Precious” Mo’Nique; the strong black actor is expected to play the demeaned character then crawl into the judgment hall hopefully to get rewarded.  

Denzel Washington was skipped over, accordingly, for his authentic portrayal of Ruben “Hurricane” Carter, a twice-convicted boxer so convinced of his innocence that he bedazzled everyone who listened. Instead of rewarding that brilliant interpretation of a black man in full, Hollywood gave its “Training Day” Oscar to Denzel for casually playing the most corrupt cop in Los Angeles as a despicable black detective; so much for true-life in the LAPD.

In the current Broadway run of “Fences,” Denzel returns to his “first love” in a role made famous by one of his stage heroes. Nonetheless, he probes a rich vein of Wilson’s ’85 Pulitzer Prize winning work that was largely overlooked or incompletely explored by the great James Earl Jones in the original production. (Tip of the hat to the Tony’s for also selecting “Fences” as this year’s “Best Revival.”)

In the ‘80’s version, the roar-voice power of James Earl Jones amplified the athletic drive of the main character at the expense of his other prowess, leaving Troy Maxson as a washed-up baseball player, chiefly. Troy was hell-bent on getting back up at the plate and taking his swing at life and at death. Leaving little room for his stage wife to breathe air into her character, Jones played the ex-con failing at reforming his life with a wife and son in a performance dominated by the baseball aspects of the play.

However, in the current version, when Denzel’s Troy copped to messing around with another woman, his wife, Viola Davis, grounded him with a powerful response made all the more effective because of the vulnerable way Washington had set his character up.    

“We’re not talking about baseball,” Rose countered her husband soaring in one of his sports metaphor, we’re talking about life.

It is precisely upon this greater canvas that the playwright paints his masterpiece. "Fences" is not baseball interpreting life, as in the hands of Jones, but rather art, and God what universal art, interpreting life in the magnificent dialogue of August Wilson.

Set in the 1950’s, "Fences" is a highly intelligent exploration of father-son relations as twisted by society, racism and circumstance, and passed along to succeeding generations. As worked out against the broader interplay of wife-mother, brother and cut-buddy, Denzel brings out more of what Wilson intended than the acting range of James Earl Jones would allow.

Never much by way of a romantic actor, say, Jones lacked Denzel’s range of witty tenderness needed to sell the ex-con’s conversion to solid citizen anchored by a job and his passionate commitment to wife Rose and their son. Thus when Troy Maxson relapses to form and fathers a child outside his marriage his fall from grace is much steeper and more dramatic when he breaks the news to his wife.

“I fooled them, Rose,” said Denzel uttering the same Troy lines Jones directed at those wishing to see him fail. “I bunted. When I found you and Cory and a halfway decent job... . I was safe. Couldn’t nothing touch me. I wasn’t gonna strike out no more. I wasn’t going back to the penitentiary. I wasn’t gonna lay in the streets with a bottle of wine. I was safe. I had me a family. A job. I wasn’t gonna get that last strike. I was on first looking for one of them boys to knock me in. To get me home.”

The confrontation leaves ample room for Rose’s sharp spousal response and Viola Davis earns her Tony slashing away as if with a straight-razor that barely leaves a scar.

Notwithstanding Denzel’s Hollywood celebrity, he, unlike Jones, does not suck all the air from the stage. Rose and the two sons even are allowed to shine through and more fully probe the complexity that August Wilson had in mind with this extraordinary play.

None of this critique is aimed at knocking the Tony-award performance of James Earl Jones—who dare knock “The Great White Hope”--but merely to contrast the contemporary interpretation with the original, as memory serves. Just as Heath Ledger struck a tone as the “Joker” quite different than that of Jack Nicholson’s in “Batman,” Denzel’s “Fences” is a rewarding departure from that played by James Earl Jones.

Still, we need not choose here anymore than we need pick the 10 American plays of August Wilson’s over the 38 Elizabethan works of Shakespeare—let’s just celebrate both masters and resurrect their creations as often as a stage on Broadway or anywhere else becomes available.

Now that’s how that goes!